History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 118

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1700

USA > California > Orange County > History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 118

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In 1881, Mr. Jumper was married to Miss Ellen Fabb, a native of England, who is still living, and they have become the parents of five children. Fred T. is an oil man at Ojai. Eva A. is the wife of H. J. Henry, and resides at Balboa. Royal F. is a

von Trapp Frieda Trapp

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rancher at Shafter, Kern County, Cal. Harry is assistant city engineer and resides at Balboa. And Albert P. is an automobile mechanic employed by Rodger Bros., and was in France during the war in the One Hundred Forty-fourth Artillery. Harry was also in the naval aviation service, while H. J. Henry was in the machine gun service in the Ninety-first Division, and received the French decoration of the Croix de Guerre.

Reared a Baptist, Mr. Jumper has been a member of the Odd Fellows since he was twenty-one, and has filled all the offices, so that he is past grand of Riverside Lodge No. 282; and he belongs to the Star Encampment of Riverside, No. 73, where he is past chief patriarch. Wherever he is, or whatever he does, but especially when he is busy at beautiful Balboa, he is an optimist of the most practical and helpful kind; and his faith in the fortunately-situated harbor town is rock-ribbed. "This is a good old world," he says, "and I am going to stay in it as long as 1 can."

WILLIAM TRAPP .- For several years a sailor on the high seas, William Trapp visited many of the principal ports of the world, braving the perils of the deep and encountering many thrilling experiences, and now, in the quiet of his Anaheim home, he can relate many interesting happenings in recalling his seafaring days. One of Anaheim's early settlers, he has seen this locality change from a barren, cactus-covered plain to one of Southern California's beauty spots, with groves of lemon, orange and walnut stretching as far as the eye can reach.

A native of Germany, William Trapp was born on February 13, 1868. at Dortmund in Westphalia, his father, Joseph Trapp, being employed in the mines of the locality at that time. Of the five children of the Trapp family, William was the third oldest and the only one to immigrate to the United States. He received a good education in the public schools of Germany, but when he grew to young manhood he determined to leave his native land, where the military regulations were becoming more and more oppressive. He landed in New York in 1888, and made his way to Memphis, Tenn., where he was employed for the next three years. Attracted to the sea by its life of adventure, he shipped from New York as a sailor on the Timandria, sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to the East Indies, visiting Calcutta, Madras, Ceylon and St. Helena, returning to New York after a voyage of thirteen months. His next berth was on the Sterling, bound for Hong Kong, China, and it was indeed filled with perils and dangers. Mr. Trapp had become steersman of the vessel, and while off the coast of China they were caught in one of the typhoons which have dealt such deadly destruction to hundreds of ships. In the midst of the gale they lost their rudder and were compelled to put back to Hong Kong, where the damage was repaired, returning to San Francisco after a year at sea. For a time Mr. Trapp worked as a longshoreman at San Pedro. returning to the sea again in the coasting service between San Francisco and British Columbia; he was on the first vessel landing at the Long Wharf at Santa Monica.

In 1894 Mr. Trapp met with an accident that resulted in quite a severe injury, and he then determined to quit the sea. Coming to Anaheim, he purchased a small place on North Street, where he raised apricots and vegetables, remaining here until 1900, when he sold the ranch, intending to go to Oregon, but was induced to remain here. He then purchased twenty acres on Sunkist Avenue for the low price of thirty-five dollars an acre, the land then being covered with cactus and sage brush and giving but little promise of its future prosperity. Mr. Trapp at once began to clear and level the land, setting it out to Valencia oranges. He sunk wells, installed a pumping plant for irrigation, improved it with a substantial residence and other buildings, and soon made it one of the most attractive places of the locality. He continued to reside here until January, 1919, when he sold the orchard for $3500 an acre, at that time the highest price that an orange grove had brought in this vicinity. After disposing of his property Mr. Trapp traveled north, with the expectation of investing in land in some other locality, but he found nothing that compared with the attractive and productive lands of Orange County, so he returned to Anaheim and purchased the twenty acres where he now resides. It is set out to Navels and Valencias, and he intends making it one of the show places of the county. He has already erected a handsome residence and made many improvements, and with his long experience as a horticulturist it is only a question of time when it will be one of the most valuable citrus ranches in this district.

Mr. Trapp's first marriage occurred in Anaheim, uniting him with Augusta Schreiber, a native of Bohemia. She died, leaving him four children, two of whom are living: William A. is a cement pipe contractor, and resides at East Anaheim; Henry died at the age of fifteen; Walter assists his father on the home place; Frank died in his first year. Mr. Trapp was married a second time, the ceremony occurring in San Bernardino, Cal., February 13, 1914, when he was united with Frieda Schneider, who was born in Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany. After completing her education in

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Karlsruhe she came to Chicago on a visit to her brother, after which she came to Orange County, where she met Mr. Trapp, and the acquaintance resulted in their marriage, a union that is proving very happy to them both. Fulfilling a long-cherished desire to visit the old world, and particularly his old home in Westphalia, Mr. Trapp left for France in July, 1920. After visiting Paris as well as other important cities, and the battlefields, they made their way through Lorraine to Germany, where he visited the old home and traveled all over the country, visiting the different points of interest, returning through Holland and sailing from Rotterdam to New York City, being en route on the ship Ryndam fourteen days to New York, and thence came immediately to his home, delighted to get back-Orange County looked better than ever after seeing war-torn Europe, and was glad that destiny had led him when a young man to the land of the Stars and Stripes and the state of sunshine and flowers. In fraternal relations Mr. Trapp has been identified with the Elks for a number of years, being a charter member of Anaheim Lodge No. 1345. Politically he is an adherent of the principles of the Republican party. A man of the highest principles and unquestioned integrity, he and his family are held in the highest regard in the community that has been their home for so many years.

FRANK CLAUDINA .- Decidedly a "live wire," and no wonder, for he is widely acknowledged to be one of the best livestock buyers in Orange County, F. Claudina, the capitalist at Newport Beach was long and favorably known at Fullerton, where for many years he had a well-appointed livery stable and a fully stocked feed yard. He is, in fact, a most capable judge of mules and horses, and as far back as his seven- teenth year bought cattle on the O'Neill ranch for his uncle, Frank Claudina, and then drove them all the way to Los Angeles where they were shipped to San Luis Obispo.

He was born in East Somerville, near Boston, Mass., on May 15, 1874, the son of Joseph Claudina, a native of France, who came to Massachusetts and served in the Civil War and was a farmer in the Bay State. Our subject, therefore, grew up in the city of baked beans and culture, and came to California with an uncle, Frank Claudina, when he was eight years old, in 1882, and settled in and grew up in Tuolumne County. Then he removed to Fullerton, Orange County, in 1899. He had married in San Francisco, in 1894, Miss Mary Martin, a native of Walnut Creek. Contra Costa County, whose parents were pioneers of Walnut Creek. Since coming to California, he has made nine different trips back to Boston, where his mother, who was Catherine Alameda before her marriage, resided until her death, in 1918, in her seventy-third year. He has also traveled through the United States and in Canada from Montreal to Vancouver. He was very successful as a stock buyer, drover and dealer at Fullerton. During the panicky times of Grover Cleveland, Mr. Claudina lost heavily; but it is eminently to his credit that he paid all of his debts, one hundred cents on the dollar. He owns a quarter of a block on Spadra Street, Fullerton, where he has erected a garage which he rents, and, besides, he owns three residences in the same block.

After such an active life, full of hard work, of benefit to others as well as himself, it is gratifying to Mr. and Mrs. Claudina's many friends that they are to take a well- earned rest in beautiful Newport Beach where they have an attractive home surrounded by flowers and is said to be the finest in town. Mr. Claudina's extended and successful connection with Orange County interests of various sorts leads one to wish that now that he has become a resident of Newport Beach, he may further identify himself with the development of the beach towns.

FRANK P. BORCHARD .- How unremitting, intelligent industry inevitably brings its own reward is well illustrated in the careers of the Borchard family, founded by Casper Borchard, of which Frank P., the subject of this review, is one of the most successful members. His father came from Germany, and applied the lesson of hard labor acquired there to the problems confronting him in the almost primeval country to which he came; and, although a large landowner in several counties, he is today best known in Ventura County, where he is still living at Conejo. The good mother, Theresa Moring, was not permitted to survive and witness the success of the eight children. each of whom reflected credit upon the family name. Rosa is now the wife of Silas Kelley, the rancher, of Conejo; Mary, single, keeps house for her father at the old Ventura home ranch; Leo's story is given elsewhere in this work; Casper is a rancher in Ventura County and lives near Conejo; Anton is a rancher at Greenville, Orange County: Frank P. is now a resident of Santa Ana; Charles is a rancher at Fairview, in Orange County; and Theresa is the wife of Ed. Borchard, the rancher, and resides at Conejo.

Born at Conejo on August 28, 1886, Frank was twelve years old when his mother died. When only eight or nine years old, he began to ride the range; and he drove horses at farm work when he was only thirteen. He saw the beet sugar factory

John. M. Hine

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erected at Oxnard, and is proud of the fact that his father early raised beets for the factory, and as a large stockman and cattle raiser for years, was one of the first in California to feed beet tops to cattle in order to fatten them.

When nineteen years of age, Mr. Borchard started grain farming in partnership with his brother Anton, renting 3,000 acres of land on which they raised wheat, barley and oats. He worked seventy-five head of horses. and eight eight-horse teams at plowing, and thirty-two head of horses on a Holt harvester, and he soon took rank among the large grain growers of Ventura County. In 1909 Casper Borchard turned his property into the corporation organized by him and known as the Borchard Land Company, and the Borchard holdings were farmed by that corporation for about ten years; then the company was dissolved, and a division of the land was made among the sons and daughters. At one time his father had as many as 900 head of cattle on the range, and when he came down to Orange County, he displayed equally good foresight and executive ability in buying heavily of "Gospel Swamp" lands. He believed that the district could be drained and made very valuable, and the great task he accom- plished, assisted by his sons. Inasmuch as the Borchards understood sugar beet grow- ing, they raised large quantities; and more recently the land has been found very valuable for the production of lima beans, so that it is now worth from $500 to $750 per acre.

In 1912, Mr. Borchard was married to Miss Myrtle Heaston, the wedding taking place in the summer month of August. She was a native of San Diego, but grew up in Los Angeles and Orange counties, and her parents still reside at Huntington Beach. Three children blessed their union-Alice and Alfred, twins, and Barbara. The ranch house at Huntington Beach, where the Borchards formerly lived, having burned down in April, 1919, the family came to Santa Ana, and there Mr. Borchard bought a residence at 415 East Fifth Street, where they now live. They attend the Catholic Church, and Mr. Borchard belongs to the Knights of Columbus and the Elks. Mr. Borchard has worked very hard in his lifetime, but he and his estimable wife are at last able to enjoy the fruits of both labor and sacrifice.

JOHN M. WINE .- In point of continuous service, John M. Wine, of the firm of Wine and Fewell, irrigation contractors and cement pipe manufacturers, is the veteran in his line in Orange County, having been engaged in this work since 1906. A native of Tennessee, Mr. Wine was born near Bristol, in that state. September 25, 1874. his. parents being John and Ann Wine. The years of his boyhood were spent at the home place in Tennessee, where he had the advantages of the public schools of the locality. When he reached young manhood he decided to start out for himself, and migrated to northwest Illinois, locating in the neighborhood of Milledgeville, Carroll County, where he worked around on farms from 1894 to 1899.

The Pacific Coast had a strong attraction for Mr. Wine, however, so he made up his mind to try his fortune in California. He arrived here in December, 1899, settling first at El Toro, where he continued to do farm work, later working at Buena Park, Orange and El Modena. In 1906 he came to Santa Ana and became actively . engaged in the cement pipe business, to which he has ever since given his time. In 1915 he formed a partnership with Archie Vernon Fewell, under the firm name of Wine and Fewell, and they maintain a cement pipe manufacturing establishment at 1029 East First Street, Santa Ana. Here they do an extensive business, having laid about 200 miles of cement pipe for irrigation in Orange County. They have done much work for such discriminating patrons as Judge Williams, James Irvine and scores of leading agriculturists and horticulturists of the county. The firm is known far and wide as thoroughly efficient and square in all their dealings. They mann- facture and carry a large stock of cement pipes of all sizes, from four to thirty-six inches, and valves, gates and other irrigation necessities, so that they are able to handle any contract satisfactorily and expeditiously. They have handled large con- tracts at Tustin, San Juan Capistrano, Delhi, Harper, Newport, Greenville, Laguna Beach and Santa Ana, and have also done a great deal of road and county work for Orange County.

In 1909 Mr. Wine was married to Miss Lanna M. Jordan, also a native of Ten- nessee, and the daughter of Thomas and Christene Jordan. They are the parents of one child, Vivian. Mr. Wine is the owner of an excellent ten-acre walnut ranch on Ritchie Street, near Santa Ana, which he planted and improved, and here the family make their home. He purchased this property in 1917 and set out the whole acreage to hudded walnuts, so that every year increases the value of the place. The family are members of the Brethren Church at Santa Ana and hold a high place in the regard of their many friends. A self-made man, Mr. Wine has a tremendous capacity for mental and physical work, and he never tires in contributing to the progress of the place of his choice.

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THOMAS E. BROADWAY .- An American genius who has both natural apti- tude and long, invaluable experience for his difficult and important art, that of up-to- date shipbuilding, is Thomas E. Broadway, the naval architect of Newport Beach, who has recently organized the Broadway Boat and Equipment Corporation, a corporation capitalized at $15,000. No better location could possibly be found in all California than picturesque, popular Newport Beach, with its well-protected bay; and he is undoubtedly the right man in the right place at a decisive hour in the history of this expanding portion of Orange County.

Mr. Broadway was born in New York City on the thirteenth of November, 1876, just when the ambitious American nation was reviewing the wonders of its exposition at Philadelphia and taking stock of what it had accomplished, in science and invention, in the course of the first century. His father was Joseph Broadway, a native of New Jersey, who married Miss Mary Creer, also a native of the metropolis, now living at the age of seventy, in excellent health, in West Hoboken; and he worked at his ship- building trade in the yards around New York Bay. They had seven children, six of whom-two boys and four girls-have grown up.

Thomas, the oldest of these, attended the public schools of Hoboken, to which city he was taken when he was three years of age, and was graduated from the high school of Hoboken, after which he also went to work in the shipyards. He began with ordinary boat and ship work, and in the evenings he studied naval architecture in the night schools in New York. He was employed by Messrs Teigen and Lang, at their Hoboken shipyards, and by William Wall, a ship-joiner and yacht-builder at Hoboken and in New York; and he also worked at the William Rowland shipyards, in New York, the John English Shipbuilding Company, the Tobo Yacht Construction Com- pany in New York, and for the Robinson's Dry Dock Company, and while thus engaged, put in eight months as one of the workmen building the library and stateroom of J. Pierpont Morgan's palatial yacht, "Corsair," costing over a million dollars to construct.

After that, Mr. Broadway traveled as a journeyman yacht and shipbuilder all over the United States, studying various methods and models of construction as practiced or preferred in different sections of the country, and he worked so hard that his health broke down. As a consequence, he came to California and Newport Beach, in 1916, to recuperate; and being a professional yachtsman, familiar with the building and handling of boats and yachts, he soon became an enthusiastic member of the Newport Harbor Yacht Club, and has helped to organize and is a member of the Southland Sailing Club of Balhoa. He knows all about the manning of yachts, and has helped the boys to win the coveted cups and other prizes.

Mr. Broadway has incorporated his new and very promising enterprise under the name of the Broadway Boat and Equipment Corporation, with himself as president and treasurer; George Palmer, the mechanical engineer and machinist, as vice-president, and Joshua Mader, secretary; and the company's scope will be to build, repair and equip sea-going craft up to 300 feet in length, turning out yachts, sail boats, power boats, and row-boats to be used in Newport Bay and on the near-by ocean. He has just rebuilt a forty-foot yacht for L. N. Merritt of Pasadena, at a cost of $8,000, and is completing a fifty-foot yacht for W. Starbuck Fenton, of Ontario, at a cost of $15,000; and he was compelled to turn away $40,000 worth of work in 1920.

At West Hoboken, N. J., Mr. Broadway was married to Miss Louisa Oltar, a native of that state, by whom he has had two children, Robert E. and Mary. The family attend the Episcopal Church, and Mr. Broadway joins the Republican party in its campaigning for better citizenship and better government.

ROBERT WARDLOW .- An able business man, good neighbor and friend, who is rapidly coming to the fore as one of the most successful farmers and influential citizens in the Talbert precinct, is Robert Wardlow, a native son born at Downey, Cal., on July 7, 1879. His father was R. B. Wardlow, a native of Iowa, who came to Cali- fornia in 1875 as a young man. At Los Angeles he married Miss Martha E. Draper. Both parents, esteemed by all who know them, are still living at Santa Ana.

R. B. Wardlow was always a farmer, and for a while lived in the vicinity of Long Beach, on the Jotham Bixby ranch. In 1896, he removed to Fountain Valley, in the Gospel Swamp, as Talbert was then called. Now he owns 220 acres of choice land there, and 1,000 acres at Corona, which is operated by his youngest son as a stock and grain farm.

Robert Wardlow grew up in Los Angeles County, and there attended the public schools. He graduated from the ninth grade of the grammar school at Clearwater, and after that, wishing to perfect himself for success in the business world, took a commercial course in the Orange County Business College at Santa Ana, in 1898,

He was married, at Bolsa, in 1900, to Miss Lida Swift, a daughter of A. F. Swift, a rancher in the Talbert precinct. He has spent a life of unwearying labor, and is now

Of Black.

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well-to-do and widely respected. Five children blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Wardlow: Clare, the eldest, now seventeen years old, is in the high school at Santa Ana; and the others in order of their birth are Vance and Gladys, also in the high school, and Muriel and Donald.

Mr. Wardlow farms some 140 acres, of which 110 are planted to sugar beets, and thirty to alfalfa; and he is one of the most successful sugar beet growers and dairymen in the Talbert precinct. He is a member of the California Dairymen's Association and the Orange County Farm Bureau. He has thus been able to contribute a valuable and highly intelligent influence toward the rapid development of California's agricultural interests, and in particular to favor the expansion of the county in which, like so many others, he has had his success.

CLEMENT LINCOLN SLACK .- Interesting as one of the really few men who had an active part in the building of early Santa Ana, Clement Lincoln Slack, the retired contract teamster, is sure to be remembered, and in the pleasantest manner, by those who for many years come after him. He was born in Rushville, Schuyler County, Ill., on May 9, 1863, the son of Nathaniel and Eliza ( Berry) Slack, the former a graduate of Galesburg Medical College, who practiced as a physician, and was con- sidered the best doctor of his time in Schuyler County. Faithful in the defence of his country, in an Illinois regiment. he was wounded during the Civil War, and upon his recovery was assigned to hospital work. This strenuous service on behalf of the unfortunate soldiers made him an experienced surgeon as well.

When twenty years of age, in 1883, Clement Slack came to Santa Ana, Cali- fornia, and stayed with his aunt, Mrs. George Minter, for a year, working in the vineyards near Santa Ana. Then for a year he was with Mr. Halesworth. Suffering from somewhat impaired health, he had come to California, and here he found vigor and happiness again. At Santa Ana, too, on April 6, 1886, he married Miss Mary Durant, the daughter of John Durant, a lady horn in England, from which country her parents brought her to the United States. For a while they lived in New York state, and later near Waukesha, in Wisconsin.

After marrying. Mr. Slack went in for farming, renting a ranch of twenty acres on East First Street. It was planted to grapes, but the vines died, and then he sowed barley there. Still later it was set out to apricots and walnuts. In 1893 he purchased his home on North Broadway, and there he has resided ever since. He also purchased twenty acres on North Main Street, on both sides of the Santiago Creek, his object being to get gravel for construction work; and after that he began teaming, and for twenty years supplied much of the gravel and sand used here in early building. He hauled gravel over the greater part of Orange County, and con- tracted to supply gravel and sand for the present Court House and for the Spurgeon Building, and brick for the Pixley Building in Orange. From time to time, he sold portions of these twenty acres, and at present he owns only one acre between Main Street and the Southern Pacific bridge, near the Santa Ana Creek. His first wife died, and some years later he married Miss Ida Seeley, a schoolmate from his old home town, of whom he was bereaved four years later.

Public-spirited and willing at all times to do his full duty as a citizen, Mr. Slack has several times served on election boards; and during the recent war he partici- pated in all the activities.

OSCAR H. MARYATT .- A citizen of Santa Ana who has found that his late coming has been no barrier to attaining popularity throughout the county, is Oscar H. Maryatt, a patriotic veteran of the Civil War, who is serving for the second time as commander of Sedgwick Post No. 17, G. A. R. He was born in Alleghany County, New York, on September 24, 1841, the son of George W. Maryatt, a tanner of leather at Ceres, in Ceres County, Penn., a pioneer who lived to be ninety-nine years and seven months of age. He was a native of Rhode Island, and married Polly W. Maxon, also a Rhode Islander, who attained her eighty-fifth year. The four uncles and two annts of the Maryatt family stood high in professional life as doctors, lawyers or novelists, and all made names worth conjuring with.

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History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 118

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs Publication date: 1921 Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1700

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1700